Point of Law: In order to apply Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, only the components which are essential or were the cause of the discovery would be considered to be legal evidence.

ORDER :

1. The instant bail applications have been filed by the petitioners Kamlesh S/o Shri Mangilal and Dilip S/o Shri Prahlad under Section 439 Cr.P.C against the order impugned dated 07.01.2023 passed by learned court below in connection with FIR No.01/2022 registered at Police Station Rathanjana, District Pratapgarh for the offence(s) under Sections 8/15 & 29 of NDPS Act.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that a false case have been foisted against the petitioner. They have nothing to do with the alleged offences and no useful purpose would be served by keeping them behind the bars. It is the admitted case of the prosecution that neither the petitioners were found present at the crime scene nor any incriminating material or contraband was recovered from their possession. They have been made accused on the strength of confessional statement made by the co-accused during police custody which is otherwise not admissible in evidence by virtue of Sections 25 and 26 of Indian Evidence Act. The said disclosure statement does not come within the ambit of Section 27 of Indian Evidence Act. It has been propounded by the Privy Council in the case of Pulukuri Kottaya & Ors. Vs. Emperor (AIR 1947 PC 67) that since nothing was discovered or recovered, the disclosure statement made while in custody which distinctly connects the accused-petitioners with the commission of the crime cannot betaken as an admissible piece of evidence. Since nothing is there on record from which involvement of the accused can be presumed, therefore, the condition under Section 37 of the NDPS Act do not come in way of releasing the petitioners on bail.

3. Per contra, learned Public Prosecutor opposed the bail applications on the ground that the recovered contraband weighed 2303 kilograms in total and that is way above the commercial quantity demarcated for Poppy husk.

4. Heard and perused the material available on record. The seizing officer during his cross examination candidly admitted that during the investigation, the agency did not come across any evidence, direct or indirect, to show the connection of the present accused-petitioners with the other co-accused. The names of the present petitioners do not find any mention in the information received under Section 42 of the NDPS Act. He further admitted that as per the seizure memo, parchakayami and spot documents as well as the statements of witnesses available on spot and statements of members of the seizing team, nothing has come on record regarding the alleged involvement of the petitioners in the present case. During investigation, no witness was found who had seen accused Vinod, Kmalesh, Dilip and Jitendra Singh together, exchanging the contraband.

5. It has been held by Hon’ble the Supreme Court in the case of Mohd. Inayatullah Vs. State of Maharastra, reported in AIR 1976 SC 483 that in order to apply Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act, only the components which are essential or were the cause of the discovery would be considered to be legal evidence. The relevant paragraph of the judgment reads as under:

“For the application of Section 27 the statement must be split into its components and to separate the admission portion. Only those components or portions which were the immediate cause of the discovery would be legal evidence and not the rest which must be excised and rejected.”

6. It can be manifested from a simple reading of Section 27 of the Evidence Act and the judgments referred above that only information in the form of confession received from disclosure made by an accused cannot be taken as reliable piece of evidence in isolation until there is a discovery or a recovery or another fact to corroborate the said information and prove its veracity. Precisely, it can be said that Section 27 of Evidence Act is an exception to Sections 24, 25 and 26 of Evidence Act, however, the exception limits its admissibility only upto what is envisaged in the statute itself and not beyond that.

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